Brotherhood Of Death was released on Blu-Ray by Code Red DVD in October.
Allow me to begin by quoting the tagline on the back of the Blu-ray cover: “When Soul Brothers Meet The Ku Klux Klan, The Sheets Are Gonna Hit The Fan!”
There’s a good chance that that’s already enough to tell you if this is the sort of movie you are going to like or not. Brotherhood Of Death is a very low budget blaxploitation revenge thriller, but like many great blax classics, it has somewhat cartoonish characters and plenty of fun with its concept.
A brotherhood — one of brothers in arms — is forged in Vietnam as a group of black American soldiers learn to fight, kill, and survive together. They train as a unit and become a skilled and deadly force. When they finally return home from the war, their happiness is short-lived. They’re met with racism and injustice in the deep south, battling corruption and institutionalized racism.
The Vietnam angle is where the budget shows the most. Some of the footage is clearly pulled from another much grainier source, possibly stock footage or newsreels, and the combat uniforms don’t really rise above the level of Halloween costumes — not to mention the men appear to be wearing at least three different camo designs between them. It’s also clear in some scenes that American forests are standing in for Vietnamese jungle. Guerrilla filmmaking of guerrilla warfare.
Back to the plot, though — when a female friend is accosted and raped by a group of white men, the Brotherhood bands together to try to figure out how to respond. Although positively identified, the rapists are not arrested or convicted. Seeking a peaceful resolution, the Brothers encourage the black community to turn out in droves for the current election and vote the crooked incumbents out of office and bring about change within the system, but these efforts are shut down by corrupt, racist officials.
When the KKK responds to their gathering with arson and violence, the Brotherhood decides enough is enough, and pulls out their proverbial battle chest — the fatigues and machine guns they thought they’d never need again — to end things once and for all in a hail of bullets. The shoot-out that caps off the picture is both enjoyably cathartic and sad for its necessity. There’s a great subterfuge gag in which one of the Brothers puts on a Klan robe to sneak up on the bad guys from behind, which I’m pretty sure inspired similar scenes in modern films like O Brother, Where Art Thou and Bad Boys II (although to be fair The Black Klansman preceded Brotherhood Of Death by a decade). That in itself is pretty awesome, but they actually take it a step further with a reversal of the concept that I’ll not elaborate on here — but it’s good stuff.
The film got me early. At the beginning I immediately identified the opening notes of Revelation’s funky song “High Horse”, which was already one of my favorite 70s jams. Although I didn’t realize it, it turns out “High Horse” is actually the theme song from this film and is laced throughout. So right off the bat I was pretty predisposed to like it (as if there was any chance I wouldn’t like a movie about Brothers gunning down the KKK).
As I write this, the city of Ferguson is in turmoil. Just hours ago, we watched what from my perspective appears to be a white police officer literally getting away with murder — the murder of a black young man. In a disgusting miscarriage of justice, Officer Darren Wilson will not face criminal charges for the killing of Michael Brown. Look, I don’t want to get too timely and political, but this is weighing heavily on my mind right now and I can’t help but draw parallels to this situation, even in a relatively silly blaxploitation movie that’s nearly 40 years old. When the system fails to provide justice, and every peaceful avenue has been taken, what then?
Note that I’m not justifying mob violence or looting (as in Ferguson), which is unconscionable, but pointing out the desperation from which it springs. But then, there’s just something to be said for watching the most marginalized members of society blow away racist scumbags with machine guns.
One of the weirdest and perhaps most insightful aspects of the film is the Sheriff character. He’s a good old boy with racist tendencies, and is partially responsible for the rapist — a friend of his — getting off the hook. But even so, he isn’t blind to the atrocities going on around him: rape, arson, political manipulation, suppression of essential freedoms. Basic humanity trumps his upbringing, and he becomes an unlikely ally to the Brotherhood and a pariah to the racists whose feathers are ruffled by his betrayal. Having a white law enforcement officer as one of the heroes seems a very unusual and frankly generous proposition for the genre, but it works. For the film’s sake he’s probably necessary to keep things from becoming a battle of blacks versus whites along pure color lines, but more importantly, he’s a reminder that people can change for the better.
The Package
Brotherhood Of Death arrives on Blu-Ray courtesy of Code Red DVD.
Special Features and Extras
TV Master from 16mm
TV Version of the film; has a more grungy, “grindhouse” look than the clean restoration.
Isolated Music Track
Alternate music-only audio track for the film. There’s some great music in the picture, so I guess it’s cool in that respect, but as a whole this track is has a lot of long silences and is not really a watchable version of the film.
Interview With Haskell Anderson(14:31)
Probably the best known actor in the film, Haskell Anderson (who is known for his appearance in Kickboxer) gives a pretty lengthy interview in which he discusses his memories of making the film. He seems like a pretty laid back guy who enjoyed working on the film with his NFL player co-stars.
Original Trailer (3:00)
Good solid trailer with strong narration, in the classic blaxploitation vein.
A/V Out.
Brotherhood Of Death is available exclusively at the Code Red Website.